Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder (R) and his allies face 162 violations of state campaign finance laws in connection with allegations of a nearly $61 million bribery scheme, the Columbus Dispatch reports.

The wife of former Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) was sentenced in U.S. court to eight months of home confinement after pleading guilty to misusing more than $150,000 in campaign funds in a corruption case that ended her husband’s career, the AP reports.

Government attorneys noted Margaret Hunter’s cooperation with the prosecution of her husband in arguing against putting her behind bars and for allowing her to serve the sentence at home.

“The Clintons have sold out their own people for cold cash. They are grifters.”

— Steve Bannon, in a 2016 interview on Breitbart News Radio, while adding the Clintons were running “a money laundering operation.”

Bannon today was charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors.

A federal complaint charges that Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s (R) political operation accepted more than $60 million in bribe money from FirstEnergy Corp. to secure the company a $1.3 billion public bailout, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

“Householder, chief political aide Jeff Longstreth, and lobbyists Matt Borges, Neil Clark, and Juan Cespedes used the bribe money to expand the speaker’s political power and enrich themselves by millions of dollars through a ‘web’ of dark-money groups and bank accounts.”

Police activity is being reported at Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s (R) farm and the U.S. Attorney’s office said it is holding a 2:30 p.m. press conference today related to $60 million in bribes paid to a state official, the Dayton Daily News reports.

A source said Householder and four others are in federal custody.

Cleveland Plain Dealer: “It’s not the first time the FBI has looked into Householder’s activities. In 2004, during the Republican’s first stint as speaker, the FBI opened an investigation into Householder after receiving an anonymous tip that the speaker and aides received kickbacks from vendors doing business with the Ohio House GOP’s campaign arm. That investigation closed in 2006 without any charges being filed.”

“Sheldon Silver (D), the once dominant New York State Assembly speaker who for nearly five years fended off prison after being convicted twice on corruption charges, lost a final bid for freedom on Monday when he was sentenced to 78 months in prison,” the New York Times reports.

Chicago Tribune: “The extent of House Speaker Michael Madigan’s power over Democratic politics was evident from the muted responses of a number of members of his own House majority after federal prosecutors implicated the nation’s longest-serving statehouse leader as the beneficiary of a near-decadelong bribery and influence scheme conducted through Commonwealth Edison.”

“As federal subpoenas were delivered to Madigan’s large third-floor office at the State Capitol, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who deferred much of his first-term agenda to the speaker, said Madigan owed the public an explanation and should resign if allegations of wrongdoing are true. Pritzker’s remark was echoed by Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle, who heads the county Democratic Party, as well as by a few of Madigan’s Democrats in the House.”

David Frum says we have witnessed the “most conspicuous scandal in American history.”

“Although crucial details remain concealed, the core narrative has been visible from the start. An American private citizen worked with foreign spies to damage one presidential candidate and help the other. That president accepted the help. When caught, the private citizen lied. When the private citizen was punished, the president commuted his sentence.”

Lawfare: “President Trump’s commutation of the prison sentence of his long-time confidante Roger Stone is wholly unsurprising. Indeed, given Trump’s repeated teasing of the matter over the life of the case against Stone, it would have been something of surprise had he not intervened so that his felonious friend was spared time behind bars.”

“But the predictable nature of Trump’s action should not obscure its rank corruption. In fact, the predictability makes the commutation all the more corrupt, the capstone of an all-but-open attempt on the president’s part to obstruct justice in a self-protective fashion over a protracted period of time. That may sound like hyperbole, but it’s actually not. Trump publicly encouraged Stone not to cooperate with Robert Mueller’s investigation; he publicly dangled clemency as a reward for silence; and he has now delivered. The act is predictable precisely because the corrupt action is so naked.”